North Potomac man lives life on Craigslist

Jason Paul, 22, of North Potomac is living in three cities across the U.S. to see if he can get by using only Craigslist.com.

After graduating from college, Jason Paul applied for more than 180 jobs.

He didn't land one of them.

So Paul decided to see if he could make his way in three U.S. cities for three months each using only what he could find on the classifieds Web site Craigslist.com.

With a car, computer, camera, phone, one bag and $2,500 he saved while in school, Paul set out on his journey in September. For everything else he would need to survive  meals, housing, work and friends  he turned to Craigslist.

"In college I did plenty of things by way of Craigslist  buying stuff, selling stuff, things like that," said Paul, 22, of North Potomac, who graduated from American University with a communications degree in the spring and interned as a reporter for USA Today. He graduated from the McLean School of Maryland in Potomac in 2005. "I figured it'd be an interesting story/experiment to see how far I could push it."

He started in the San Francisco area, where Craigslist was founded in 1995, and lived with a family in Oakland in exchange for about 18 hours of work a week caring for the children and helping out around the house. In mid-December he moved to an art collective and then a basement in Denver and got jobs taking photos of fans at Harlem Globetrotters games and as a server at Denny's. Paul is looking for suggestions on his third from readers of his blog

www.livingcraigslist.com, though he's looking for somewhere on the East Coast with less than 400,000 people.

Paul has supported himself with a variety of jobs both temporary and long-term as he makes his way from city to city, accompanied by people looking for rides on Craigslist. He spends hours posting listings seeking everything from pen pals to an oil change and responding to others with varying degrees of success. Though there have been negative experiences, like the homeowner who refused to return his security deposit, and the requisite scams to sift through, Paul said most people he's met have been friendly and eager to help.

"Craigslist is a site that changes every week. I can't know what I'm going to do a week from now because that listing hasn't been posted yet," Paul said from Denver. "I'm just trying to appreciate today as much as I can and Craigslist enabled me to do that."

In addition to documenting his trip online, Paul hopes to write a book about his experience and has been speaking with a literary agent.

"It's been a crazy ride, I'm thrilled at how it's worked out so far. It's not that we doubted him, but he was taking a large risk," his father Stephen Paul said. "...All through my children's lives I've taught them about being flexible and making their own way and that's what he's done. I'm very proud."

The experience has been challenging, Jason Paul said, but no more so than the typical experience of moving to a new city. And being able to draw on the Craigslist community helped him find new relationships and the opportunities, like joining book clubs, canvassing for advocacy groups about health care and having Thanksgiving dinner with strangers.

"The reason I'm fascinated with the site is Craigslist is one of the excellent examples of how the Internet, when used correctly, makes connections," Paul said. "At face value people see Craigslist as just a place to buy or sell a couch but it's so much more than that. It's far exceeded my expectations for what's possible with Craigslist  it's more of a community than people think or know about."